If you’ve played StarCraft, then chances are you might have come across a Protoss unit called the Carrier which is basically a massive ship that can deploy a swarm of tiny drones to overwhelm the enemy (see video below). It’s practically science fiction, or is it? Turns out it could soon be real-life as the Pentagon has been testing out a similar concept.
Perdix Drone. Photo credit U.S Department of Defense
Recently the Pentagon has revealed that they have successfully tested out the idea of using a swarm of drones as a means of attack. To be specific, this swarm of drones consists of 103 Perdix micro drones that operate with a hive mind mentality, in which they can move and adapt to one another like swarms found in nature.
According to William Roper, director of the Pentagon’s Strategic Capabilities Office, “Perdix are not pre-programmed synchronized individuals, they are a collective organism, sharing one distributed brain for decision-making and adapting to each other like swarms in nature. Because every Perdix communicates and collaborates with every other Perdix, the swarm has no leader and can gracefully adapt to drones entering or exiting the team.”
We’re not sure when these drones are expected to be deployed and used in real-life situations, but in the meantime the concept certainly sounds quite frightening, but at the same time amazing in the sense of how far we’ve come along in technology.
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